Power P.R. maestro Howard Rubenstein and former Gov. Mario Cuomo traded memories of meeting as law students at St. John’s University in the 1950s — and then as colleagues advising Brooklyn’s Victory Memorial Hospital — when Cuomo presented Rubenstein with the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism’s Distinguished Service to New York Award on Monday. “I don’t have enough time to say anything serious,” quipped Cuomo. But he did find time to say Rubenstein “has dealt with all of New York’s vaunted leaders . . . and [has] done it better than anyone else.” Cuomo described Rubenstein as “the ideal arranger of people who are finding it difficult to get along,” and called the negotiations he conducts “earnest, sincere, intelligent, fair.” Rubenstein, who’s helped guide the city through crises from potential bankruptcy in the 1970s to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 , called New York, “above all, a city to be cherished for its potential.” The CUNY j-school’s founding dean and former editor of BusinessWeek Stephen Shepard received a Lifetime Achievement Award. ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas emceed.